Climate change crisis and COP26

'Parties to the 2015 Paris Agreement pledged to limit global warming to well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C relative to pre-industrial times. However, fossil fuels continue to dominate the global energy system and a sharp decline in their use must be realized to keep the temperature increase below 1.5°C.' - An excerpt from a renowned scientific journal 'Nature' published recent article 'Unextractable fossil fuels in a 1.5°C world'

According to a recently released report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) it was around 1980s that the tipping point for climate change crisis happened, whereafter global warming really started to take a much sharper upward trajectory. It is at that time that the impact of climate change started to come to fore much more than before, although by no means insignificant even much earlier. No wonder then perhaps, given a greater imprint of climate change, the United Nations (UN) launched the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 and operationalised it in 1997 under the 'Kyoto Protocol' by setting greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions targets for industrialized countries, which nevertheless could go into force in 2005, after ratification - to deal with growing GHG emissions, and the overall climate change phenomenon.

Within the overall UNFCCC, the UN formulated Conference of the Parties (COP), to work as the main decision-making entity, the first meeting of which - COP1 - took place in 1995. Virtually every country is the member of 197-member UNFCCC. Yet, due to over-riding neoliberal forces since the early 1980s, whereby short-term price signals under an overall environment of weak government policy intervention and increasing influence of corporate financing of electoral campaigns, and in turn greater role of policy in safeguarding private, vested interest over important economic and environmental considerations of a long-term, sustainable nature that mattered to the general public, meant that it has taken virtually three decades, a fast unfolding of climate change crisis, and along with it the severe negative consequences of Neoliberalism on weakening democracies, multiple financial crises, rising income inequality, along with its significant bearing in causing the current pandemic. It is, therefore, important to note that in COP26 corporate and overall extractive political and economic institutional designs are appearing to take a back seat to effectively dealing with the existential threat of climate change.

The economics editor of the Guardian, Larry Elliott, in his recent article 'Cop26 will be derailed unless the rich world meets its obligation to the poor' indicated in this regard: 'It has taken a while to get everybody on the same page - much too long, in fact - but minds are now focused in a way they weren't 10 years ago. Climate change deniers fought a long rearguard action against the scientists but have now been seen off. That's welcome, as is the recognition that the challenges presented by the need to restrict temperature rises to 1.5C require a different form of economics.'

According to an Economist article 'What is happening at COP26?' include South Africa 'signed a "Just Energy Transition Partnership" with America, Britain and the European Union under which it will receive $8.5bn in concessional funding and grants in return for phasing out coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. South Africa generates more than 90% of its electricity from coal, and is the 12th-largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world.' Moreover, the major announcement in terms of green finance came from 'Rishi Sunak, Britain's chancellor, kicked off "finance day" with the announcement that the country will become the first "net-zero aligned financial centre". ...Sunak also announced that Britain would support a new capital-markets mechanism for green bonds, and put £100m ($136m) towards easing access for developing countries to climate financing.'

Also, 'America and the European Union announced a global methane pledge which aims to cut anthropogenic emissions of the greenhouse gas responsible for more warming than any other save carbon dioxide. The cuts envisioned are of 30% by 2030, measured against 2020 levels.' In addition, in terms of steps towards undoing deforestation 'More than 100 world leaders pledged to end deforestation by 2030 on November 2nd. Tree-laden countries signing up included Brazil, Canada and Russia. Some 85% of the world's forests will be covered by the agreement. In return countries will receive $19bn-worth of funding (from both public and private sources). Deforestation is thought to account for around a quarter of greenhouse-gas emissions.' Given a significant effort already in place in terms of planting trees across the country, Pakistan should look to take greater support from this initiative, in addition to being a successful case-study for other countries in planting and growing trees on a large scale and quickly.

Yet, given the criticality of COP26 in the context of closing window in terms of dealing effectively with fast-unfolding climate change crisis, the response in terms of commitments by world leaders up till now leaves a lot to be desired. According to the same article by Larry Elliott, 'Even so, there's a real risk that Cop26 will end in failure... The reason for that is simple: rich countries want poorer countries to set more stringent targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions; poor countries say they will do so only if the plans are consistent with poverty reduction and a narrowing of the prosperity gap with the west. Poor countries point out that the current mess is largely the result of the long-term heating of the planet by rich countries. ...To meet the Paris goal of 1.5C... The US investment bank Morgan Stanley has put a price tag of $50tn (£37tn) on five key areas of technology...Despite plenty of promises, financial assistance has been slow in coming. Developing countries have every right to be cynical about the $130tn of financial firepower to tackle the climate crisis allegedly being marshalled by the world's biggest financial companies, when past pledges of a $100bn a year from rich countries have yet to be met.'

Also, George Monbiot in his recent article 'Cop26 has to be about keeping fossil fuels in the ground. All else is distraction' for Guardian pointed out in terms of urgent need to narrow the gap between commitments and policy actions that should be indicated in the COP26 meetings: 'A recent study in the scientific journal Nature suggests that to stand a 50% chance of avoiding more than 1.5C of global heating, we need to retire 89% of proven coal reserves, 58% of oil reserves and 59% of fossil methane ("natural gas") reserves. If we want better odds than 50-50, we'll need to leave almost all of them untouched. ...As the latest production gap report by the UN and academic researchers shows, over the next two decades, unless there's a rapid and drastic change in policy, coal is likely to decline a little, but oil and gas production will keep growing. By 2030, governments are planning to extract 110% more fossil fuels than their Paris agreement pledge ("limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels") would permit.'

The gap between current policy and commitments needed to reach the desired global warming target of 1.5C, is indeed quite big as pointed out by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) published article 'Not yet on track: climate threat demands more ambitious global action' by Kristalina Georgieva, managing director (MD) of the IMF; as can be seen in the figure below from the article:

As per the article, 'For example, getting in the range of the 2 degrees target could be achieved with emissions cuts from advanced economies, high-income emerging markets, and low-income emerging markets of 45, 30, and 20 percent, respectively. A different balance of effort with cuts of 55, 25, and 15 percent would achieve the same goal, as would a weighting of 65, 20, and 10 percent. To stay on track for 1.5 degrees, much more ambitious reductions are required for the same groups of countries. For example,70, 55, and 35 percent, or 80, 50, and 30 percent below 2030 baseline levels.The good news is abatement costs are manageable. To put global emissions within range of a 2 degrees target would cost 0.2 to 1.2 percent of GDP, with the biggest burden falling on richer countries. And in many nations, the cost of shifting away from fossil fuels may be offset by domestic environmental benefits, most notably reductions in deaths from local air pollution. ...[Moreover] Advanced economies must fulfill their commitment to provide $100 billion per year in finance to low-income countries from 2020 onward.'

According to a recent IPCC report, it is likely that the world could reach 1.5C in the early part of 2030s, which makes it exceedingly important that the countries make full use of the negotiating and discussion time at COP26, given the window of keeping the planet within reasonable warming limits is closing quite quickly. In a recent Project Syndicate (PS) published article 'Why COP26 will fail' it was highlighted that 'UN Climate Change Conferences have failed to produce a model of global governance that can tame power politics, let alone forge a sense of shared destiny among countries. And there is little reason to believe this time will be different.'

(The writer holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Barcelona; he previously worked at the International Monetary Fund)

He tweets@omerjaved7

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021